This Heritage Foundation report focuses specifically on how eligibility rules for pre-K education subsidies may affect couple decision-making. It provides an example of how program rules across systems can create complex financial trade-offs for families. For TANF administrators working in cross-system partnerships, this piece underscores the importance of understanding how education, childcare, and other supports align with family economic mobility strategies.

The Child Welfare Information Gateway podcast series covers timely topics in child welfare, family well-being, and systems change. These episodes can be a great professional learning resource for TANF staff, partners, and community providers engaged in cross-system work or serving families with complex needs.

Supporting families in reunification, which is the process of safely returning children in foster care to their parents, aligns closely with TANF’s mission to promote family stability and self-sufficiency. This California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse webpage highlights promising practices, program models, and outcome data related to reunification services. TANF agencies can use this resource to strengthen referrals, align supportive services, and integrate evidence-informed family support practices into their own workforce and case management strategies.

Intergenerational programs are gaining momentum as a strategy to support families, reduce social isolation, and build community capacity. This Generations United toolkit provides step-by-step guidance for TANF partners interested in creating or strengthening shared intergenerational sites, spaces where older adults and children/youth participate together in learning, care, and engagement. With tools for planning, partnership development, and sustainability, this resource supports goals around family economic success, caregiving support, and community engagement.

This U.S. Aging guide offers a practical framework for strengthening collaboration between child welfare and aging networks to better identify and support kinship caregivers, many of whom are older adults stepping in to care for children when parents are unable. The resource outlines action steps to improve cross-system coordination, access to benefits and services, and recognition of the vital role kin caregivers play in family stability. This can help TANF agencies deepen connections with community partners serving older caregivers and reduce barriers to economic support and resource navigation.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs play a critical role in helping families move toward employment, stability, and long-term economic mobility, including through the use of career pathways, which are connected sequences of education, training, and work experiences that help individuals progress through chosen fields. STAR has created a catalog of career pathway toolkits to help TANF programs plan career pathway initiatives. 

To accompany the Career Pathways Toolkit Catalog, these Guided Use Cases offer short, practical explainers that show how TANF programs can apply selected tools to common implementation challenges. TANF administrators and staff can use these Guided Use Cases to quickly identify which tools are most relevant, when to use them, and how they can support TANF program goals.

In December 2025, the National Governors Association (NGA) hosted a conversation for the Human Services Policy Advisors network and Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Assistant Secretary Dr. Alex Adams to spotlight new administration priorities. This NGA discussion summary highlights ACF’s efforts to ensure every child has a safe, stable home by emphasizing prevention, family preservation, and kinship care. A recording is available but please contact the NGA Children & Families team for the password at info@nga.com. 

For TANF programs, this focus on keeping families together before deeper system involvement resonates with prevention-oriented work and cross-system collaboration. TANF staff can use insights from these efforts to strengthen connections with local child welfare and kinship support networks, helping families maintain stability and access supports that reduce economic hardship and crisis.

This National Center for Diligent Recruitment resource describes what it means to build a “Kin-First” child welfare system that prioritizes placing children with relatives or familiar caregivers when out-of-home care is needed. It offers principles and practices for supporting kin caregivers with the right resources and engagement. TANF programs can use the kin-first framework to inform partnerships and service planning, especially when working with relatives raising children by aligning cash assistance, work supports, and family stability services with kinship-centered approaches.

This resource from the Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network explains how Family First Prevention Services Act reimbursement can be used for services that help Native children and families before deeper child welfare involvement occurs. It offers practical guidance on eligible programs and supports that honor traditions and community strengths. For TANF programs serving Native families, this can inform cross-system coordination and funding alignment — helping connect participants to culturally grounded supports that reinforce family wellbeing alongside TANF’s economic goals.

This Child Welfare Playbook strategy highlights the value of tribal family coaches – community-based supports who work with families to navigate systems, build strengths, and connect to resources in culturally grounded ways. For TANF programs serving Native communities, this strategy provides a practical idea for how partnerships and staffing models can be designed to improve engagement, trust, and access to supports that promote both economic stability and family strengthening. Integrating or aligning with family coach roles can enhance service responsiveness and outcomes.